r's hand, and of the sergeant, who had at once been summoned, was
conclusive and he began to cherish a hope that they would get through
without withdrawing, and he would be home before five. But then a hitch
occurred. The regimental doctor failed to respond when his name was
called; and the judge having for the first time that day showed himself
capable of human emotion, intimated that he would adjourn until the
morrow.

Mr. Bosengate received the announcement with equanimity. He would be
home even earlier! And gathering up the sheets of paper he had scribbled
on, he put them in his pocket and got up. The would-be suicide was being
taken out of the court--a shambling drab figure with shoulders hunched.
What good were men like that in these days! What good! The prisoner
looked up. Mr. Bosengate encountered in full the gaze of those large
brown eyes, with the white showing underneath. What a suffering,
wretched, pitiful face! A man had no business to give you a look like
that! The prisoner passed on down the stairs, and vanished. Mr.
Bosengate went out and across the market place to the garage of the hotel
where he had left his car. The sun shone fiercely and he thought: 'I must
do some watering in the garden.' He brought the car out, and was about
to start the engine, when someone passing said: "Good evenin'.
Seedy-lookin' beggar that last prisoner, ain't he? We don't want men of
that stamp." It was his neighbour on the jury, the commercial traveller,
in a straw hat, with a little brown bag already in his hand and the froth
of an interrupted drink on his moustache. Answering curtly: "Good
evening!" and thinking: 'Nor of yours, my friend!' Mr. Bosengate started
the car with unnecessary clamour. But as if brought back to life by the
commercial traveller's remark, the prisoner's figure seemed to speed
along too, turning up at Mr. Bosengate his pitifully unhappy eyes. Want
of his wife!--queer excuse that for trying to put it out of his power
ever to see her again! Why! Half a loaf, even a slice, was better than
no bread. Not many of that neurotic type in the Army--thank Heaven! The
lugubrious figure vanished, and Mr. Bosengate pictured instead the form
of his own wife bending over her "Gloire de Dijon roses" in the rosery,
where she generally worked a little before tea now that they were short
of gardeners. He saw her, as often he had seen her, raise herself and
stand, head to one side, a gloved hand on